Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts

"AP Bio": "Always Sunny" Glenn as a disgraced philosopher turned high school teacher

 


The television series AP Bio was broadcast on NBC in 2018-19, and then on Peacock in 2020-22, and is now streaming on Netflix.  It stars Glen Howerton, who plays the amoral sociopath Dennis Reyolds on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so I imagine his AP Biology teacher will be similar.  It may be a nice break from looking for gay characters in endless Christmas romcoms.

Scene 1: Whitlock High School, home of the Rams.  The stereotyped students sit in the classroom, waiting.  Crash!  Jack, played by Glen, has just hit a bicyclist and crashed into the school sign. The biker wants to argue, but Jack scares him away with a crowbar.

In class, he explains that he's an "award winning philosophy scholar" with a free year, so he took a job teaching Advanced Placement Biology.  Ok, that's impossible. College professors can't teach high school; you need a degree in education, plus student teaching experience.  And philosophers can't teach biology; you would need a degree in biology.  How do these tv shows get off, thinking that anybody can be hired as  a teacher?

But he won't be teaching biology.  He also won't be doing any sharing and caring. He's going to be spending the year trying to steal the job of his nemesis as head of Stanford Philosophy, so he can sleep with every woman in California.  I already hate this douchebag.


Scene 2:
The students have some questions.  He promises to give them all As if they keep quiet about not learning biology. Upon discovering that a student is named Sarika Sarkar, he starts lecturing on philosopher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, but stops when they pull out their notebooks to take notes.  He won't be teaching them philosophy, either. 

Uh-oh, the Principal, Patton Oswalt, would "like a word." At 5' 3", he's a member of the Short Guy Prigade

The Principal is angry about the accident that wrecked the school sign, but Jack fast-talks him into apologizing and promising to be more laid-back.  They hug.  He  asks Jack out for a beer tonight, but Jack will be busy trying to bang his ex.

Scene 3:
At home at his "dead mother's house," amid pictures of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and himself as a geeky teen, Jack is getting drunk-er.   He calls his friend Miles in California while giving 0 stars to his bestselling book of "philosophical rubbish." 

Miles: "It's a shame you were kicked out of Harvard, but stop by anytime you're on the West Coast." Aha, the nemesis!

Next Jack showers.  Beefcake, no nudity.


Scene 4: 
The next day, the School Bully, Spence Moore II, knocks down the Troubled Loner Devin,  Jacob McCarthy, and throws his backpack into the river. 

Cut to three lady teachers having lunch and discussing their sex lives: "So my date comes to my house in a sopping wet t-shirt, talking he had just got out of the bath.  What kind of baby-man takes baths?  Let's hear more about that wet t-shirt.

Jack introduces himself, and is asked if he has any interesting dating stories. "No, but tonight I'm going to bang my high school ex as hard as I can."  They are delighted.

Turns out they're all jerks.  "I make the students take a photo of me and show it to their dads." "I make them clean my car to learn about recycling."  Jack is delighted to discover that as a teacher, he make his students do whatever he wants and call it "education."

Scene 5: In class, the students have prepared a rap number about how much they like biology, but Jack cuts them off.  He has a new project: they're going to work together to destroy Miles.  "It's basic utilitarianism.  Jeremy Bentham..." They open their notebooks. "No, don't write that down.  I'm not teaching you!"

The project: catfishing.  Make up fake profiles with pictures of beautiful women, and send him flirty messages.  How will that destroy him?


Scene 6
: The students find a video online explaining why Jack was kicked out of Harvard: at his tenure hearing, he attacked an elderly professor, who defended himself and put him in a headlock. Embarrassing tenure fail.

Jack enters and wants to hear their catfish messages.  First up: Troubled Loner Devin: "Dear Miles, you don't know me, but you will. We will marry under the black sun of Satan's breath.  I'll be the final face you see as I wrap my hands around your neck and suck your soul into my mouth."  I've had blow jobs like that.

Jack likes it, only "make it a bit more feminine."  Sounds like Devin is gay.

More after the break